Anglicans against vaccination?

Question: Are there any traditional or independent Anglican jurisdictions that are against vaccinations or are counseling their members not to take them? I haven't heard of any.

 

My assessment of Australia is that the Bishops, both Anglican and Roman have been strong supporters and advocates of the Vaccination Program.

The point where they vary is that they have not wanted to make vaccination mandatory for those who come to Church, on the grounds that it is not their role to turn people away - the Church is there for everyone, the vaxxed and the unvaxxed alike.

 

That is very interesting, Botolph. The news here in the US depicts Australia as one of the most stringent COVID responses. Largely shown as mass house arrest in many areas. I hope you have fared well during the pandemic.

I probably should have said that my focus is more on American churches. With the mandate deadline looming and religious accommodation being discussed so much, I wondered if there were any Anglican churches on the anti-vax side of the equation.

 

We have been reasonably effective in managing the event in the main. Victoria has taken a more aggressive stand (in terms of lock down) which they are now winding back. Queensland and Western Australia have pursued a lock out policy. At the moment it would be easier for me to get to Perth in the UK than Perth in Western Australia.

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There is divergence in the vaccine take up. New South Wales, where I live, is currently at 85% fully vaccinated.

My personal view is that it may be acceptable to have a short term differentiation on vaccination status given the public health questions, however this a non-sustainable long term proposition, and quite frankly would fall foul of our anti-discrimination provisions, most likely in the longer term.

I am very supportive of the Bishop's position, as I do not believe it is in the Church's DNA to exclude people on this basis.

 

My parish here in Victoria is doing a vaccination certificate check at the door and only those vaccinated or with exemptions can enter. Those without vaccinations are encouraged to either watch the service on video afterwards or to contact our priest for other options.

I like the vaccine mandate because it protects others. It can't always be about the individual when we have vulnerable people among us who need protecting. Some people can't get the vaccine due to compromised immune systems but these are able to get an exemption to show.

 

What would be the Christian/Anglican objection to vaccinations? Are you proposing objection to vaccinations against COVID-19 or to all vaccinations?

 

Either/or

I'm just interested if any Anglican jurisdiction has a negative stance on vaccines, either generally or with specific regard toward COVID.

There's a lot on the internet saying that few if any Christian denominations prohibit vaccination, basically Dutch Remormed and Christian Science. I was curious if any conservative Amglican groups had discussed the issue.

Most Christian arguments against vaccination appear to be based on fetal tissue harvested from babies who were the victims of elective abortion being used in either the development, testing, or manufacture of the vaccines.

 

I can understand Christian Science being opposed. If ever a denomination had an inappropriate name that one does.

I know very little to nothing about the Dutch Reformed Church so am unable to discern why they may be opposed.

I think any group that claims to be Chistian or to belong to another faith is being disingenuous with those claims that the vaccines were developed from cell lines that originally arose from an aborted foetus. There are vaccines that have not been developed using cell lines at all, e.g. Pfizer-BioNTech. Therefore, their claims are invalid and those with serious conscientious objections could ask for one of the vaccines not developed in this way. I also wonder if they realise how many other advances in medcine have over the years been developed using such cell lines, and which may be treatments they take.

It seems to me that some irresponsible people are scaremongering and that they are lying about things. They often present what may seem credible to the layman but which are absolutely nonsense and bear no resemblance to the scientific facts. The saying I was told as a child by my elders certainly seems true in these challenging times: Empty vessels make the most noise.

 

The Holy See has said it is OK for Catholics to reveive COVID-19 vaccines that were developed using foetal cell lines.

This is another misconception of the COVID-19 vaccines. Not all of them were developed in this way. Other vaccines were developed by other means. Those with a serious conscientious objection to vaccines developed from foetal cell lines need not decline all COVID-19 vaccines for this reason. They can ask for one of those developed by other means. I understand most countries offer more than one vaccine.

 

I just now realized the Archbishop mis-dated that pastoral letter. It was released 8 March 2021.

 

In truth I thought it was a spoof. We have faired fairly well. We have the local Church open again tomorrow, though part of our Parish cannot attend as we are on the boundary between greater Sydney and Regional NSW. That is a frustrating oddity we have managed with and manage around. That boundary ceases to exist on Monday, as a result of having reached 85% double vaccination. The State is now talking about a goal of 95%.

 

I don't know who said what about Australia, but as far as I am concerned, we have handled the whole pandemic wonderfully well. Sure, lock-down has been hard on a lot of people, myself included. But we aren't a nation of whiners and complainers, nor do we put our own 'right's ahead of the needs of the majority of our society. So for most of us, it was a matter of doing what had to be done to get through the pandemic with the lowest number of losses possible. During WW2, in England there was a mentality that helped people deal with the daily deprivations and sorrows - everyone just pitched in for the greater good of all. I see a similar attitude in Australia, we do what has to be done.

And the COVID statistics prove that we have done very well as a nation, and we are proud of that. We are also happy that we are coming out of the strict restrictions that we faced for so long, now that our vaccination rates are getting so good. Tonight at church, I had to scan the QR code on my phone (QR code is like a square barcode that every place now displays as you enter, to keep track of people who have been in contact with a COVID outbreak) and then I had to show my vaccination certificate. I did it willingly and happily. This is how it feels to live in a country where the government wants to protect all of its citizens.

There are always the disgruntled few who want to moan and complain about things, but they don't represent the majority of Australians. The pandemic has affected all of us around the world in different ways, and that is just because it has been a major disaster. Sure we might complain from time to time just because we are human, but in the end, things are so much better now than they were when this whole thing started and we just didn't know what was going to happen. The vaccine has has literally saved millions of lives and I feel hopeful that things are only going to get better from now on.

 

Not to be argumentative, but everything I have researched shows that fetal cell lines were either in the development or the testing of all the vaccines available in the US. Please point me to the vaccine(s) that haven't.

 

But you will be. You know when someone begins with, 'I don't mean to be but ...' that they do actually mean to be.

I am going to be argumentative. No foetal cell lines were used in the development or manufacture of any COVID-19 vaccine. Yes, cell lines were used but they are thousands of generations away from the original foetal cells used in the 1970s and 1980s. It takes a very great stretch to therefore count oneself as guilty of having any connection with those abortions.

The cell lines were used in developing the vaccines. There is just no way around this. Therefore, if you have ever had a vaccine against any viral disease that vaccine may have used human cell lines in its development. Unlike bacteria, viruses will not grow on artificial media. They need to be grown on living cells. Sometimes the cells of animals are used but sometimes human cells. Just as most viruses will only infect certain cells in a living host they will in the laboratory only grow on certain cell types.

 

I'm not sure the comparison between your organ donor card and fetal cells harvested from electively aborted babies really holds, CR.

The most significant concerns Christians generally have is not the act of harvesting the tissue. It's the source of the harvesting that is at issue. You signed up to donate your organs voluntarily after informed consideration and, most likely, a natural death. While Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna developed and produced their vaccines without using cell lines derived from aborted human fetal tissue, but they used the HEK293T line of embryonic stem cells derived from a 1972 abortion to confirm the final vaccine quality; a process that a surprising number of other commonly used medications follow. Thus, there is literally no path that a vaccine can take from manufacture to injection that does not, in some way, depend on an elective abortion to exist.

If one believes, as I do, that any medically unnecessary abortion is tantamount to murder, a violation of the 6th commandment, then any benefit derived from that atrocity, directly or indirectly, is fruit of the poisonous tree. And those who knowingly and willingly partake of it are bringing judgment on themselves.

A more appropriate analogy would be the Chinese government's rumored harvesting and sale of political prisoners' organs involuntarily, a practice that was roundly condemned by medical ethicists, if I recall correctly.

In both cases, the sources were given no choice in how their bodies would be used post mortem and were executed. To profit, even remotely, from such a grizzly and down right ghoulish practice strikes me as wholly immoral and un-Christian.

 

I have never voluntarily received a vaccine and never will.

 

And just think of all those millions of other stupid people who got the small pox vaccine just so it could be eliminated from the natural world and to stop you (lowly Layman) getting it. If only they had the insight you have, the world would be a better place.
These same stupid people have all but eliminated Polio. Maybe you would like to do missionary work in Afghanistan and Pakistan among the few unfortunates that still have it.

 

I've never opposed vaccines in general, personally. Any time I was about to travel outside the country on a mission trip, I've always made sure my shots were up to date.

That said, my wife and I have only gotten a couple of flu shots in our lifetimes. We don't see the need or the benefit. But we have no problem with them, per se, and we don't oppose them.

As for mRNA, we feel that we want to see at least 5-6 years of track record for these shots before we would even consider them for ourselves.